


Gramophone

by everywintersbreath



Category: PRISTIN (Band), Pentagon (Korea Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: F/F, Historical, M/M, No Explicit Sexual Content, Prostitution, Time Travel, inspired by their cyjz performance, magic gramophone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywintersbreath/pseuds/everywintersbreath
Summary: Junhui is saved by Yanan's song.





	Gramophone

**Author's Note:**

> wow i love junan? yahui? huinan? junya? yajun? whats the ship name please help me

He first meets Yanan in his dreams.

The other comes slowly over the hill, handsome features accentuated by the elegance of his clothing. He hums the same song that Junhui always chooses to play on the gramophone in the corner of their makeshift dorm behind the brothel, holding Junhui’s head in his lap and soothingly caressing the cuts and cigarette burns that mar his skin. 

He’s achingly sweet and gentle, dressing in a manner unlike anyone that Junhui’s ever seen before. His fingers are so soft in Junhui’s own, their hands melting together under the falling petals of the cherry blossom trees that decorate Junhui’s dreamscape. Yanan is everything he’s ever wanted, a prince that lingers just out of reach, singing the same melody into his ears until the moment that he wakes up and is forced to return to reality. 

Kyulkyung’s hands are on either side of his face, gently shaking him awake. He blinks, smelling the scent of the incense the owner burns in their quarters and unconsciously shrinking back into his blanket. From the guilty look in the woman’s dark eyes, Junhui already knows why she’s waking him up. “There’s a client asking for you,” she whispers, looking away.

He smiles at her, the expression practiced. “Alright, thanks, Pinky.”

She swallows, nodding and getting up to go across the room and sit with her girlfriend Nayoung. Junhui gathers himself, exchanging his torn sleep tunic for a more presentable one. It’s not like it matters when the garment will be torn from his frame anyways, likely to be ruined. His clients are always the roughest of the bunch, passed on to Junhui rather than the girls because the owner doesn’t want any of the girls to get “ruined”.

He slips through the door back to the brothel quietly, going to meet his client with a hesitancy in his steps. It’s a familiar face, a man who presses Junhui down and bruises his skin until he cries, the thought of Yanan’s pretty face smiling at him the only thing keeping him from losing it completely. When the man leaves Junhui halfheartedly drapes his tunic back over himself, limping back into their quarters as both Nayoung and Kyulkyung rush over to his side. 

“Shit,” Nayoung mumbles, grabbing a wet washcloth and dabbing at one of the cuts on his legs. He crumples down onto his bamboo mattress, letting her to attend to his more severe injuries. They take care of each other here. Have to, really. No other way to survive. If Junhui goes, one of them will take his place. 

He catches Kyulkyung’s attention, the other girls out with clients. “Can you,” he gestures vaguely in the direction of the gramophone, feeling Nayoung mop at the sweat on his forehead with the rag. Kyulkyung nods, hurrying over. She switches it on, the melody that he loves so dearly floating into his head and relaxing his every muscle. It’s okay, he thinks. It’s okay as long as Yanan continues to appear in his dreams. He has to bear this for the others.

 

 

 

Junhui meets Yanan every night, the location sometimes changing. 

They splash around in the waters of the bay where Junhui spent his earliest years, lay under a blanket of stars and stare upward, chase the clouds through fluffy fields of grass, sit among the crowd at a summer festival, and most often meet at the bridge in front of the little house, sheltered by the blossoms above. It’s the kind of house Junhui’s always wanted, which is probably why it’s the usual place. 

He imagines living there with Yanan, having fun together and maybe even raising a child from one of the many orphanages that litter the city. He imagines not having to sell his body ever again, not ever having to be touched by someone other than Yanan. It’s a nice sentiment, one he holds privately in his chest, doesn’t share even with the other girls at the brothel.

After all, they’d think he was crazy. Yanan doesn’t exist. He’s just a figure of Junhui’s imagination conjured up by the stress he’s under. Still, Junhui can’t help but feel that he’s the most realistic dream that Junhui’s ever had. Even awake, Junhui can vividly picture every detail of Yanan’s face, feel the lingering remnants of his touch on his skin.

The connection feels the most real at times like this when Junhui lies alone in the room, bloody and battered, and the song starts playing from the gramophone. It’s like someone’s watching out for him, like Yanan’s watching out for him.

He smiles, warm blood running down the side of his head.

 

 

 

 

One day in late March, the owner allows all of the workers to go on an outing, citing that they look “so miserable they’ll scare off any customers”. Junhui disagrees (his customers like to see him miserable), but he can’t pretend like he isn’t grateful for the opportunity. They go to see the cherry blossoms, dressed in the most proper robes they have, all five girls and Junhui. 

It’s still cold, the lingering chill from winter sending shivers through Junhui’s thin body as he stands under the trees next to Eunwoo, gazing upward. The blossoms are just as beautiful as he’d imagined them to be although the scenery is nothing like his dreams. There’s no house, no cute little cobbled bridge, and no Yanan. 

It’s crowded, children pushing past his legs and running to their families. He sees a mother pick up her son, the father next to them cooing and running his hand over the child’s head. Something catches in Junhui’s throat. He feels like he’s going to be sick. Why can’t he find happiness? Why can’t the girls find happiness? Why has this happened to them? 

“I’m not feeling well,” he tells Eunwoo lamely. “I’m going to go back and rest.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, looking half incredulous and half concerned. “Okay, if you’re sure. Don’t die on us.” 

He laughs weakly, turning on his heel and hurrying back the way they had come to the brothel. His footsteps increase in speed until he’s back inside their quarters. There’s a strange feeling bubbling up in his chest, an anxiety that he can’t explain. As he enters the room, he realizes what it is. 

The gramophone is shattered, having been forcefully knocked off the desk on which it was placed. It looks beyond repair, parts of the horn fractured. Junhui gasps. There’s no way the owner will spend the money to buy them a new one and even if he did, Junhui has no idea the name of the song.

He picks up a piece of the horn, feeling the sharp edge digging into his palm. With a small noise, he slips it into his pocket. 

 

 

 

 

Yanan stops appearing in his dreams after the gramophone breaks. 

It’s enough to nearly drive Junhui over the edge. Without Yanan’s presence to comfort him after a painful day, he has nothing. The girls seem to sense that he’s breaking down and so Rena takes him along with her to buy new sheets for the brothel, another welcome break from the despised building. 

He wanders the marketplace behind her without much purpose, trailing along listlessly. She keeps glancing back at him worriedly, taking some of the bedsheets he’s holding as they make their rounds. There are a lot of people out and about, some of them recognizable as clients. Junhui hates seeing them, the taste of bile once again making itself known in the back of his throat. 

“How about you sit down over here for a little bit?” Rena suggests to him, gesturing to some overturned barrels against the wall of a nearby building. He complies, watching as she walks to a nearby stall to continue bartering. The owner is very finicky with his money after all. He’ll be displeased if they spend everything he gave them. 

Junhui closes his eyes momentarily, opening them again to see something that he never thought he would. There’s a man looking at him from down the street, leaning up against the wall. He’s familiar, intimately so. It’s Yanan, or at least his exact doppelganger. Junhui’s mouth opens and closes. “Yanan” smiles at him, walking over through the crowd.

“Hi, Junnie,” he murmurs when he’s close enough, not missing the way Junhui reacts to the nickname. “Are you actually-?” Junhui asks softly, not wanting to be wrong. Yanan nods, smiling. “It took me a long time to find you. A really long time.” 

Junhui reaches up to touch his cheeks, beaming. “I didn’t think you were real.”

“I am,” Yanan replies rather unhelpfully. “I just wasn’t for a while, I guess. No wait, that’s not a very good way of explaining it. I’m from a time way far in the future. I’ve been communicating with you through that gramophone you used to have. Eventually, I figured out how to physically get myself here.”

“I don’t understand how that’s possible,” Junhui murmurs, burying his face in Yanan’s chest. “But I’m glad.”

The other man nods, patting his hair and smiling. Junhui thinks things might be okay again.

 

 

They stage the escape on April 12th, knocking out the owner and taking the jars and jars of money that should rightfully belong to them anyway. Yanan leads the six of them away from the city, up a mountain littered with the cherry blossom trees of Junhui’s dreams. 

It’s a beautiful place, the perfect place for a little house with a cute little bridge in front of it. The perfect place for Junhui, and by extension, Yanan.

It’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> is it even possible for me to write a fic in which jun doesn't get injured somehow? find out next time
> 
> thank u for reading! <3
> 
> feedback appreciated


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